


Shorn

by kangeiko



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Community: fanfic100, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-03
Updated: 2006-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 20:12:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raban does good trade, war or peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shorn

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [](http://athena25.livejournal.com/profile)[**athena25**](http://athena25.livejournal.com/) for beta-ing duties.

Raban does good trade, war or peace, because Raban is a smart man, a gifted man. He saw, early on, the potential for growth and for trade and for his art in this place, and so Raban said, "I shall not style only Brakiri hair."

Raban, (the artisan): a student of Earther hair and Centauri hair and much more besides, saw the coming war, and declared it good. "Refugees," he told his apprentices, "have no need of hair," and he counted the many credits a lock of Centauri hair would fetch.

Clean hair is a beautiful thing to behold, and Raban is a connoisseur. He knows the value of pale gold strands and thick black ponytails and genuine Centauri hair for genuine Centauri wigs (it does not matter if it is a female's hair that forms them, for who is to know?). Raban (the artisan) is a smart man, a gifted man, who values cleanliness and thrift above all virtues. The war would come soon, he knew; with it would come helpless refugees and much trade.

But when the war came and brought with it the longed-for refugees, Raban cursed the sky, for the helpless credit-less masses were all Narn and had no hair to sell him. (And what would the victorious Centauri want with a Brakiri craftsman when they could visit their own kind?) Raban saw the Centauri girls keep their locks long (as if to spite him!), and the Centauri boys keep away from the station, for they called it a barren place, a den of filth. There is no glory to be found on Babylon 5, the Centauri boys said, and turned their energies and their purses towards other worlds. Raban despaired, and thought his skills lost.

That was before the war bloomed across the face of the galaxy, and Raban gave thanks to all the gods he knew, and counted it a good omen, though comets streamed past his window each night and outside the First Ones came in ships of darkness. The Great War came to Babylon 5 in 2259, and Raban burned sticks of incense in praise. It made the station a dangerous place, but though Raban (the artisan) knew his life was easily lost, his trade - his _art_ \- was safe, come war or come peace. The Great War brought refugees to the station, it is true, but it also brought busy people to him and to his workshop. So busy, all these off-worlders! Too busy to cut their own hair, and too busy to comb it or cleanse it or do anything other than run to Raban in their mealtime and ask for "a short sides and back".

Raban is a smart man, a gifted man. He does not often speak. He listens, though, to whatever his clients wish to say, and he does not repeat any of it. One of his workers thought otherwise; Raban had him sent back to Brakiri space, where he could no longer listen and repeat the secrets of these busy people.

A short sides and back, and _such stresses, sir! It is not good for your hair. What ails you so?_ And, with that little prompting, the horrors of the many wars in this space would spill forth. Centauri against Narn; Drazi against Centauri; Human against Human. There, through it all, stood Raban (the artisan), clippers in hand, the soul of discretion. He knows much: he knows the manoeuvres Commander Ivanova favoured for practice runs which had the Alpha shift pilots cursing during their monthly trim. He knows what scent the Minbari Ambassador wore in her secret places the night she first met Captain Sheridan for dinner, for it made him dizzy as he piled up the coils of her hair. He knows, even, the form and line of the new Captain's neck and breasts, where her hair spilled as he gathered it up in his hands to smooth secret serums across its dark length. Raban (the artisan, the tradesman) knows it all, and is wise enough to not think of himself as anything other than a by-stander to secrets and lives not his own.

It is not his place to repeat what he hears, and it is not his place to say what he sees. Who would believe him in any case?

Raban is a wise man, and a skilled man, for he knows the secrets of Centauri hair. He is proud of his craft, for the Ambassador - the soon-to-be-Emperor of the Centauri Republic - has come to him for his hair for five years, now. What other artisan could say the same? No. It is only Raban who is trusted with the Ambassador's thick black hair and not a mere powdered wig: out of the dozens of barbers and hairstylists on the station, it is only Raban who is called an artisan and a craftsman. It is only Raban who is offered gifts and strips of silk to charm his hand towards a hopeful client. It is only Raban who does not need to seek out clients, but is instead sought out by them.

It is only Raban (the artisan, the craftsman, the tradesman).

He does not purchase his unguents or the softening serums and starched little scraps of fabric that went into the arch of lacquered hair; instead, as ancient Centauri craftsmen had done for centuries, he mixes and prepares each of them himself. The virtuous Brakiri knows the value of hard work, and Raban is very virtuous indeed. He grinds the beans with a pestle and mortar, and pours the purest oil into the serums that he smoothes down the freshly-washed hair of the Centauri Ambassador.

Raban knows the value of his work: who else could be trusted enough to see the frightening Londo Mollari, the butcher of millions, so terrifyingly exposed? Raban knows his craft, and his fingers are nimble and precise as they rub the softening unguents into the Ambassador's scalp, loosening with tiny circular movements the stresses of the affairs of state.

"You have such beautiful hair, Excellency," he said one day, his hands buried up to the wrist in the coils. "Who does your hair back on Centauri Prime?"

"I do not have my hair attended to on Homeworld," The Ambassador replied, his eyes closed. "I do not believe that it would be wise to be so, aaah, exposed, in such a place."

"But surely the finest craftsmen in your Empire are in the Royal Court, Excellency."

"Oh, yes, I am sure. And I am sure that they tend the Emperor Cartagia just as diligently as they tended his predecessor. No, do not even suggest it, Raban. The Great Maker alone knows the secrets those snakes pass back to their masters. I would much rather wait an extra month between styling."

And he had, for the Ambassador's hair had been brittle and dry when Raban had taken it down. He had washed it diligently, and had not mentioned the tiny reddish flakes - as fine as dust - that had turned to tiny jewels of blood in the washbasin. He rinsed the fine black hair twice to remove the last of it and flushed the water away, hands still as the circles of red diminished and faded away against the white porcelain.

(He had the basin bleached afterwards, for cleanliness' sake.)

The Centauri Emperor had been mad, Raban knows. Not mad as some said - that he had wanted to exterminate the Narn; that he had not cared of the cost of his amusement or the hurt of his people. These things mean little to Raban, who is not easily menaced by Centauri warships (his family are safe, and there are White Stars between him and death, so who is to say otherwise?). These strange abstract concepts of sanity or madness do not mean much to him (he has never met anyone who spoke of suffering at the Centauri's hands, after all). No: to Raban (the practical artisan), madness meant the shedding of blood, so much and so often that the very air became thick with it.

"You have such beautiful hair, Excellency," Raban now says, whenever he takes down the Ambassador's tresses. The Ambassador smiles, and leaves an extra few ducats as appreciation. They are not needed: Raban has his true payment - that of an artisan (for he is no normal Brakiri worker but a master of his craft, and upstart young Brakiri would do well to remember it!) - in the work itself. In the four hours it takes to wash and soften and starch and lacquer the black mass, the Ambassador's eyes do not open. Raban could slit his throat, and the Ambassador would not even feel it. Raban could pour a thick poison into the softening serums and prick the Ambassador's skin with a sharp comb to kill him silently. Raban could twine the thin filaments that make the hair arch about the Ambassador's neck instead, and garrotte him where he lies.

Raban could open his mouth to speak, and the Ambassador would be lost, even more swiftly, even more subtly.

Raban does good trade, war or peace, because he is a smart man and knows the value of silence. He knows of many secrets that are not considered secrets. He knows the look of a man tortured who does not wish to shave his beard ("and it is so becoming, Captain! But perhaps just a trim?"). He knows the different oils to use on Centauri hair and Earther hair, and of the slick butters Minbari Anla'Shok use to keep their crests smooth and healthy when stationed away from their homeworld for long. ("In truth," he confided to an apprentice, "I had not expected to have a trade with hairless off-worlders! Ah, the universe has been kind in keeping these soldiers here.")

Raban (the artisan, the craftsman) also knows something of madness. It is paying such high rents for a place that sees so many comets pass by. It is studying the arts of Earthers and being branded a mere 'hairdresser' (the Centauri, he consoles himself, have a greater appreciation of his talents).

It is washing the blood out of the Centauri Ambassador's hair, and saying nothing.

Raban is a smart man, a gifted man, and he values cleanliness and thrift above all virtues.

He washes his hands after each client.

*

fin


End file.
